


Enduring Freedom

by Dee_Laundry



Category: Sherlock (TV), Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Both Johns are BAMFs but it's not part of this fic, Conversations, Interstitial, John Watson Needs A Hug, M/M, Maybe in the sequel?, Timeline What Timeline, Veterans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:47:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23932552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dee_Laundry/pseuds/Dee_Laundry
Summary: John Watson couldn’t remember the last time anything had felt even in the vicinity of “fun.”
Relationships: John Sheppard/John Watson
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18





	Enduring Freedom

**Author's Note:**

> Set after Series 2 of Sherlock BBC (2-3, "Reichenbach Fall"), and after the final episode of Stargate Atlantis (5-20, "Enemy at the Gate"). We’ll pretend those two things happened at about the same time. "Interstitial" was going to be the title but it's already been used a lot. 
> 
> If anyone wants to write the sequel to this, please do and link me to it.

John Watson stared down into the Scotch in his hand and cursed himself for letting Bill talk him into attending this event for UK and US veterans of Afghanistan. Bill hadn’t even shown up himself, blowing John off with a return text that said only, “Bzy sry have fun.”

Fun. Right. John couldn’t remember the last time anything had felt even in the vicinity of “fun.” Work was… work. He barely knew the nurses and other doctors to nod at, and his only repeat patients were the crankiest of complainers. Outside of work there was therapy (which was of course hell; if there _were_ words to explain the mortar blast that was Sherlock Holmes’ departure from life, John had yet to find them) and waiting for work to begin again.

And Scotch. Not too much. Not enough to affect work. Tomorrow John was off, though, so one more wouldn’t hurt. To take the edge off, twist the blade so it was only the flat of it, pressing inexorably down.

Lost in his head, John knocked into a soldier already standing by the bar. “Sorry,” he mumbled to the man’s shoulder blade, and took a step back.

“No problem.” American accent. Friendly tone. The uniform was – John scanned it quickly – American Air Force, service dress rather than combat, of course. “Buy you a drink?”

John blinked at the man. “The drinks are free.”

The man shrugged leisurely, and smiled leisurely. “I only have so many introductory lines. Do you want something? When the bartender gets back from wherever she’s gone to?”

“Yes, ta.” At the American’s upraised eyebrow, John clarified, “Thank you. Another Scotch.”

With an ease that surprised John, the soldier drew him into an engaging, wide-ranging conversation. They covered the wheres and whens of their respective Afghanistan deployments, finding that they had absolutely no common acquaintances from the period, which was so remarkable John had to smile. They exchanged their favorite Pashto phrases, all either humorous, profane, lewd, or all three. When the bartender finally returned and gave them their drinks, John went off on a bit of a rant about American beers; the American countered with a dissection of British food that ended with “worse than MREs.” _Well_ , thought John, British pride affronted, _I never_ , but of course he had, so they moved on to the safer topic of sport.

It turned out to be only safer in that they followed completely different sports (John: football, rugby, cricket; the American: basketball, hockey, water polo) and thus had no opportunities to uncover rival teams.

By now they were on their second drink together, John’s fourth overall. He was, he felt, coming to a fork in his evening: finish his drink, make his farewell, and head back to the cotton-wool nothing that was his life; or have another and see where that took him.

He decided on the right-hand path.

At the end of their third drink together – interspersed with waters for hydration – they were seated at a small table tucked into a corner of the room. They’d conducted a joint analysis of military regulations and the people who pedantically enforced them, which led to a common concurrence that Catch-22 was a pretty good book. They’d discussed their specialties during the war; even though the man was still active duty (on holiday for a month while his base was “grounded,” which was obviously some American term John didn’t know), he missed flying helicopters in his current assignment. Not quite the same as exchanging trauma surgery for general practice, but at least John wasn’t alone in missing the war a bit.

As John licked the last drop of Scotch off his lips, he watched the man watching him, and thought, _Well_. It had been a long time since John had had that much attention paid to him. His therapist spent an hour every week looking in his direction but it wasn’t like this. Not by a long shot.

The man was tall and lean, and although his personality was almost the polar opposite of Sherlock’s, his body reminded John strongly, achingly of his dead best friend. He even had the dark hair, although this man’s was, instead of curly, almost aggressively straight. When the man joked, “Unlike the rest of me,” it was stupid how long it took John to realize that another similarity to Sherlock had been revealed.

“D’ya want to go?” John asked. He realized than he had leaned in farther than he’d intended, close enough to see individual eyelashes around hazel eyes.

“Do you have a place?” the man replied, crows’ feet crinkling as he smiled.

John shook his head, sat back just a bit. Not far. Still close enough to see eyelashes.

“Don’t you live in London?”

John shook his head again. “I do, but it’s…” Boring. Haunted. Crammed hoarder-full with emotions that John could not and would not share. “Messy.”

Stretching, the man leaned back in his chair. “I don’t even know your name,” and John sucked in a breath at the echo of years past.

“John,” he choked out. “It’s John.”

“Well, what do you know?” the man said around a smile. He stood up and reached out a hand to help John up. They ended up shaking hands in the tight space between their chests, just far enough for their hands to fit, just far enough for John to look up (and up) into eyes that weren’t anything like Sherlock’s.

“I’m John, too.”


End file.
